In an age when eye-catching, futuristic musical instrument designs grab headlines and social media buzz—whether it’s a 3D-printed violin or a sleek, carbon-fiber piano—a new system of guitar bracing might appear to be a tougher sell. After all, these braces, which reinforce a guitar’s top and back, are all but invisible to the player and listener, and they can seem rather inconsequential even to a guitarist.
But some guitar lovers know how crucial the unglamorous bracing is to the sound and playability of any instrument. When Taylor Guitars unveiled its new V-Class bracing system in January, the company insisted it would be a groundbreaking step designed to boost the volume and sustain of its instruments, while also improving their intonation. The company presented several models to dealers, the music press, and select performers, followed by a formal rollout at the 2018 Winter NAMM trade show in Anaheim, California.
Bob Taylor, who cofounded the El Cajon, California–based company in 1974, said it was time to “stop trying to tweak our inventory within an inch of its life” and instead make a bolder, more decisive change. He entrusted Andy Powers, the company’s 37-year-old master designer, to develop a new system that would challenge X-bracing, long the most popular pattern for flattop guitars, and pioneered by Taylor’s closest competitor, C.F. Martin. The new system would signify a passing of the baton (or pick) as Powers makes his mark on a company whose greatest designs have upended tradition.
A Dance of Strength and Flexibility
As the name implies, V-bracing consists of two braces that join at the base of the top, near the end block, and extend out on either side of the soundhole in the form of a V. Three cross-braces add further support. “I took a fresh look at the X-brace design and thought, Well, for one, it works pretty good,” Powers told Acoustic Guitar. “But it represents a compromise. That compromise would be: How do you make something that’s really strong and really flexible? How can it be those two things?”
More to the point, Powers identified an uneasy tradeoff between volume and sustain. The rigidity of X-bracing, he says, enables notes to have a longer sustain—the kind of effect one finds on a solidbody guitar like a Gibson Les Paul, for example. But achieving volume requires a more flexible surface that promotes air movement. A banjo, with its flexible drumhead, has such qualities—tremendous volume with little sustain. “You try and tweak that balance between volume and sustain and sometimes you lean a little more in one direction or another,” Powers said of his quandary.
Powers, who is a lifelong surfer and occasional surfboard shaper, had a revelation one morning as he watched the waves off the San Diego coast. He observed how a stone jetty was funneling the churning surf into smoother wave patterns. Watching further, he wondered if one could create a bracing pattern that would have a similar effect. It would allow the sides of a guitar body to freely vibrate, enhancing volume while providing a stiff foundation for the strings, thereby promoting sustain.
“Calm, still waters with good waves coming in—that’s what I wanted to happen,” Powers said. As he developed a solution, he also fell back on his studies of mandolin, violin, and archtop guitar construction.
With so much contemporary popular music played on electronic instruments and relying on pitch-corrected vocals, guitarists are increasingly expected to have flawless intonation. Powers discovered that the V-bracing had the added effect of improving intonation within chords. “There’s always a fighting, or beating, between what a guitar can deliver and the note you’re actually trying to play,” he noted. “You get this rub. There’s a friction,” which Powers says can make a guitar sound slightly out-of-tune.
George Gruhn, the owner of Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, Tennessee, was pleased with a model that he tried last year. “Tone is difficult to describe, but in general, I think the V-brace gives a remarkably well-balanced sound,” he said. “It seems to cancel out some conflicting harmonics that make things sound out of tune at times. It’s one of the most in-tune guitars I’ve ever played by any maker.”
Building on a History of Innovation
Powers’ use of a surf analogy recalls an early episode in the history of this Southern California company. In one of his first, scrappy efforts to rethink guitar construction procedures, Bob Taylor sought to decorate a fretboard with mother-of-pearl. Unaware that he could purchase the materials at a guitar shop, Taylor went diving for abalone off the coast of La Jolla, broke up the shells with a hammer, and ground the pearl into usable pieces. This freewheeling approach to materials and craftsmanship has underpinned the company’s design changes over the decades, whether it was the launch of computer-controlled production machinery in the 1980s, inventing a new type of bolt-on neck joint in the 1990s, or investing heavily in sourcing sustainable wood in recent years.
To this day, Taylor and company co-founder Kurt Listug insist that a skilled artisan should be high up in the corporate ranks. “Think of other guitar builders,” Taylor says, “and ask yourself, ‘Can I put a name to that company’s luthier? What’s the wellspring of their guitars?’”
The son of a carpenter and artist in Oceanside, California, Powers crafted his first guitar by the age of eight. As a home-schooled teenager, he began building and selling guitars and ukuleles to his friends. After receiving an associate of arts degree from MiraCosta College in San Diego, he studied guitar performance and musicology at the University of California at San Diego. During this time, he established the Andy Powers Instrument Co.
Just as his business was starting to evolve, Powers crossed paths with Bob Taylor, who eventually set up a meeting and convinced him to join his company. The veteran guitar builder was planning for the future of the company, with the eventual goal of scaling back his direct involvement, and needed a builder with deep historical knowledge and the potential to stay on for the long haul.
Since Powers’ arrival, he has ushered in several changes to Taylor’s line of guitars: re-voicing the company’s top-selling 800 and 600 series, introducing a line of small-body 12-string guitars, and making a number of subtle bracing changes across the catalog. But company officials see Powers’ V-bracing development as analogous to an automaker that moves from internal combustion to an electric-powered engine.
But some guitar lovers know how crucial the unglamorous bracing is to the sound and playability of any instrument. When Taylor Guitars unveiled its new V-Class bracing system in January, the company insisted it would be a groundbreaking step designed to boost the volume and sustain of its instruments, while also improving their intonation. The company presented several models to dealers, the music press, and select performers, followed by a formal rollout at the 2018 Winter NAMM trade show in Anaheim, California.Bob Taylor, who cofounded the El Cajon, California–based company in 1974, said it was time to “stop trying to tweak our inventory within an inch of its life” and instead make a bolder, more decisive change. He entrusted Andy Powers, the company’s 37-year-old master designer, to develop a new system that would challenge X-bracing, long the most popular pattern for flattop guitars, and pioneered by Taylor’s closest competitor, C.F. Martin. The new system would signify a passing of the baton (or pick) as Powers makes his mark on a company whose greatest designs have upended tradition.
A Dance of Strength and Flexibility
As the name implies, V-bracing consists of two braces that join at the base of the top, near the end block, and extend out on either side of the soundhole in the form of a V. Three cross-braces add further support. “I took a fresh look at the X-brace design and thought, Well, for one, it works pretty good,” Powers told Acoustic Guitar. “But it represents a compromise. That compromise would be: How do you make something that’s really strong and really flexible? How can it be those two things?”
More to the point, Powers identified an uneasy tradeoff between volume and sustain. The rigidity of X-bracing, he says, enables notes to have a longer sustain—the kind of effect one finds on a solidbody guitar like a Gibson Les Paul, for example. But achieving volume requires a more flexible surface that promotes air movement. A banjo, with its flexible drumhead, has such qualities—tremendous volume with little sustain. “You try and tweak that balance between volume and sustain and sometimes you lean a little more in one direction or another,” Powers said of his quandary.
Powers, who is a lifelong surfer and occasional surfboard shaper, had a revelation one morning as he watched the waves off the San Diego coast. He observed how a stone jetty was funneling the churning surf into smoother wave patterns. Watching further, he wondered if one could create a bracing pattern that would have a similar effect. It would allow the sides of a guitar body to freely vibrate, enhancing volume while providing a stiff foundation for the strings, thereby promoting sustain.
“Calm, still waters with good waves coming in—that’s what I wanted to happen,” Powers said. As he developed a solution, he also fell back on his studies of mandolin, violin, and archtop guitar construction.
With so much contemporary popular music played on electronic instruments and relying on pitch-corrected vocals, guitarists are increasingly expected to have flawless intonation. Powers discovered that the V-bracing had the added effect of improving intonation within chords. “There’s always a fighting, or beating, between what a guitar can deliver and the note you’re actually trying to play,” he noted. “You get this rub. There’s a friction,” which Powers says can make a guitar sound slightly out-of-tune.
George Gruhn, the owner of Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, Tennessee, was pleased with a model that he tried last year. “Tone is difficult to describe, but in general, I think the V-brace gives a remarkably well-balanced sound,” he said. “It seems to cancel out some conflicting harmonics that make things sound out of tune at times. It’s one of the most in-tune guitars I’ve ever played by any maker.”
Building on a History of Innovation
Powers’ use of a surf analogy recalls an early episode in the history of this Southern California company. In one of his first, scrappy efforts to rethink guitar construction procedures, Bob Taylor sought to decorate a fretboard with mother-of-pearl. Unaware that he could purchase the materials at a guitar shop, Taylor went diving for abalone off the coast of La Jolla, broke up the shells with a hammer, and ground the pearl into usable pieces. This freewheeling approach to materials and craftsmanship has underpinned the company’s design changes over the decades, whether it was the launch of computer-controlled production machinery in the 1980s, inventing a new type of bolt-on neck joint in the 1990s, or investing heavily in sourcing sustainable wood in recent years.
To this day, Taylor and company co-founder Kurt Listug insist that a skilled artisan should be high up in the corporate ranks. “Think of other guitar builders,” Taylor says, “and ask yourself, ‘Can I put a name to that company’s luthier? What’s the wellspring of their guitars?’”
The son of a carpenter and artist in Oceanside, California, Powers crafted his first guitar by the age of eight. As a home-schooled teenager, he began building and selling guitars and ukuleles to his friends. After receiving an associate of arts degree from MiraCosta College in San Diego, he studied guitar performance and musicology at the University of California at San Diego. During this time, he established the Andy Powers Instrument Co.
Just as his business was starting to evolve, Powers crossed paths with Bob Taylor, who eventually set up a meeting and convinced him to join his company. The veteran guitar builder was planning for the future of the company, with the eventual goal of scaling back his direct involvement, and needed a builder with deep historical knowledge and the potential to stay on for the long haul.
Since Powers’ arrival, he has ushered in several changes to Taylor’s line of guitars: re-voicing the company’s top-selling 800 and 600 series, introducing a line of small-body 12-string guitars, and making a number of subtle bracing changes across the catalog. But company officials see Powers’ V-bracing development as analogous to an automaker that moves from internal combustion to an electric-powered engine.
by Brian Wise, Acoustic Guitar | Read more:
Image: uncredited
